


High Fantasy

by sacredsymbol821



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, my hand slipped to the tune of 3k words, their ending....... it was so good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 03:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21403450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacredsymbol821/pseuds/sacredsymbol821
Summary: It was supposed to be a normal day in Derdriu. Everything changed when the castle was surprise attacked.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	High Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing too major with this one. No wyverns were harmed in the creation of this fic, but some were harmed during this fic, so watch out for that if gore is not your thing. 
> 
> Also, spoilers for Claude and Byleth's ending and Verdant Wind General Spoilers so if you haven't gotten or done that yet, do so and then come back here please.

The day started like every other. Byleth got up, dressed, and walked down to her study to write up some missives for the brand new United Nation of Fodlan. There was still so much to do, and even though she was interacting with her colleagues for help- Marianne, most of all, had been very instrumental with some of the new laws the new Capital of Derdriu had passed, there was always more to do, and no end in sight.

“Your Grace!” Byleth was at her desk scribbling away at a missive when she was interrupted by someone knocking on her door very loudly. 

“Give me a moment!” She said, before she put the quill in the inkwell and opened her door. The air was stagnant on the first floor of the Derdrian castle. 

“What’s wrong, Hevrik?” She asked the man. She remembered this soldier because he had come from Faerghus after Dimitri had died to the Alliance, as had many others. 

“Well, Your Grace, there’s something bothering me. Pylas hasn’t come back from that mission you gave him last week. I know it’s normal for us, since this Nation is technically brand new and all, but.” The young man stopped himself. 

“There’s something off about it.” He finished, frowning.

Byleth had been much too busy to notice this, and silently cursed herself for it. It had only been five months since the war ended. She should not have lost her ability to watch her back so quickly- she had been using it her whole life, after all. Even though most would have dismissed Hevrik’s testimony as paranoia, she was not one to do so. 

She kept telling herself that she hadn’t been meant to rule, but she was surprisingly good at it. She wondered if Claude had seen that before she did. The minute she thought of him, and the ring she kept under her glove on her finger, she immediately walked out the door and closed it, leaving the inkwell on her desk open.

Hevrik walked with her, staying on her left side. The castle stood tall, and it was quiet enough that the waves could be heard against the shore near the castle. This didn't prevent the people from selling their wares within the castle, but it did make the hairs that had stood on end when Hevrik had spoken with her go down a little. She took a deep breath of salty air, and looked at Hevrik. He was looking around frantically, his eyes searching for something in the sky. She was about to ask what when she looked up in the sky herself. 

Her breath hitched. 

There wasn't a single pegasus knight or wyvern rider in the sky. She always made sure at least 5 were patrolling the castle at one time. 

"Something is very wrong, Your Grace." Hevrik said, echoing her thoughts. 

She opened her mouth to agree with him, and tell him that she was going to the stables when there was a loud crack next to her left ear, and the ground shook. Before she could register what was happening, the ground shook with another loud noise, and she was knocked to the ground in a flash of white. There was someone above her, screaming for her to get up. 

“Your Grace!” They yelled, so far away she could barely hear it.

“Your Grace!” They tried again. When her vision- and hearing- finally came too, she saw that there was a crater near her. Around her, she could hear the screams of the merchants who had been trying to sell their wares moments before. Shaking her head to try and clear off the ringing in her ears, she looked at Hevrik, who seemed more shocked than afraid.

“Get the Drawbridge up!” She commanded him.

“I cannot leave you alone-” He began.

“Now, Hevrik!” She yelled, and he nodded, before running off in the direction of the Drawbridge.

She turned toward the first group of merchants she saw, and pointed toward the castle. 

“Get inside there! Tell your friends! Go to the dungeons if you have to!” She yelled, and finally saw her enemy.

Byleth rarely showed emotion- even throughout her time helping the Alliance Army during the War against the Empire, she calmed the army by never showing any negative emotion. It took a really disturbing event to even shake her. This definitely qualified as one, and she felt the rage flow through her body, starting from her clenched up stomach. Those were her subjects, and whoever these people were thought she was weak enough to allow them to get away with this. The smoke cleared, and she finally saw what had caused the crater. Three wyvern riders had dropped explosives in the middle of her castle courtyard. For some miraculous reason, no one had been hurt, but her rage turned into a wildfire. She snarled at them and took out her sword. It was a simple silver sword, but she had accidentally left the Sword of the Creator in her study. As much as she would have liked to fly up to her room to get it, she could not. The first Wyvern Rider hesitated at her, then went straight into a dive. She had taught Hilda how to do that, once upon a time almost six years ago, now. She saw right through it and felt her sword slice through the wyverns soft underbelly, and felt it’s blood spray down on her face as it and it’s rider careened into a wall. She had no time to see their armor before the other two attacked. She watched an arrow pierce through the third, so occupied with her that he didn’t see the ballistae until it was much too late. The second was just as ignorant and was shot down by yet another archer that had come out to defend the castle. After making sure she was clear for the moment, she stepped over the wyvern rider and looked at their armor. 

Her brain stopped. The colors of this rider was Adrestia. The Empire to the west that did not exist anymore. One of her knights had killed a mage that had invaded the castle before the drawbridge came up. The nose that came to a point was unmissable. She, Claude, and the rest of their friends had marched into Shambala to deal with Those Who Slither in The Dark once and for all. She thought the javelins of light that fell on the underground city would have been thorough enough, but she had been sorely mistaken.

She had no time to ponder on this, however. She looked up in the sky to see there was wings blotting out the sun. As good of a fighter as she was, she could not take on hundreds of fighters at once, so she backed up into the Castle and barred the doors. The merchants she had seen earlier were handing out emergency supplies to all the soldiers getting their armor on, some of who had just been roused from bed from the commotion above them. She tried not to take stock of their odds, but her brain forced her to do so, as she had been doing that since she had started teaching at Garreg Mach. 

The force at Derdriu Castle was sizeable, but the amount of fliers she had seen outside told her they were outnumbered by a good amount. Because they had been taken by surprise, they could not retaliate the way they wanted too. Her hands were tied.

“Your Grace! What do we do?” A random soldier ran up to her in all this madness.

“Take defensive positions. We need to hold out until I can get a messenger to Gloucester or Goneril.” She replied. She couldn’t imagine what Claude would even begin to think if he found she’d died before he got back from Almyra. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself in the afterlife, if that happened. As she walked up the stairs to write a desperate plea letter to Hilda and Lorenz, she could have sworn she heard his laugh next to her ear. She missed him more than she was allowed to say. She was capable of fighting this by herself, she knew that, but it wouldn’t hurt to have an ear to listen to her or have a diabolical scheme cooked up to keep the enemy off their guard. She quickly finished the letters, and handed them off to the first pegasus knight she saw, who accepted them with a grim look on her face. There was nothing to be done for the next few hours but wait while Byleth tried to counterattacks all points of the Castle that hadn’t happened yet.

“What are they biding their time for?” Someone grunted. 

They wanted to be sure it was a quick, finishing blow. 

She closed her eyes, and tried to keep her back from shaking. For the first time in a very long time, she felt very scared and vulnerable. She had many reasons why she didn’t want to die, of course, but there were so many people here who were depending on her, and she was leading them to their dooms if she couldn’t think of something. She followed the pegasus knight up the stairs to where the messengers came in and out of to try and assess how long this army would be able to stand against their much larger foe. 

“Your Grace…” The pegasus knight said.

“You get out of here as fast as possible. Go above the clouds, as fast and hard as you can. And whatever you do, don’t look back.” She did not need their only hope to feel for her comrades and turn back.

The pegasus knight looked like she wanted to say something, but instead turned her head. 

“Yes, ma’am.” She saluted smartly, and took off into the sky. The enemy army was so busy massing by her front gate, they didn’t see her take off, and definitely didn’t see her after she went above the clouds. However, just after she had seen the pegasus knight off, she felt a shake throughout the whole building. It was the battering ram, finally. She prayed to Sothis- if she could hear her- to give them some more time. Or send a miracle. She looked up to the mountains one last time and could have sworn she saw a cloud starting to approach from where Fodlan’s Throat was. She gritted her teeth, turned around, and made her way down the stairs. She was going very slow, but each step grew more determined than the last. If she was going to die here, before getting to see her beloved Claude one more time, she would make sure Those Who Slithered in The Dark felt her regret tenfold. For every injury she took, she was going to inflict twenty more at least. For each life they took from her group, they would pay by twenty. This wasn’t an estimate. It was a silent promise that she made to the air. She finally arrived at the last step, and the doors were jiggling from the force of the battering ram. She walked by the soldiers. Some were veterans of the past war. Others were green recruits who signed on after the War finally ended. None of them were smiling, as they knew the gravity of the situation. She need not ask for loyalty they were ready to give. Otherwise, they would not be here, at the United Nation of Fodlan’s first, and final, stand.

“We’re with you, Your Grace.” Hevrik nodded to her, somberly. 

Before Claude had left the day of her coronation, he had referred to the new nation of Fodlan as a newborn. “Frail and easily upset.” He’d called the nation. Before he had left, she had gotten close enough to smell him, and his scent was all she could think about right now, as she led her soldiers to their doom.

The door cracked, and Byleth pulled out the Sword of the Creator, which glowed fiercely orange, as it always had. Then, the doors splintered open, and everything went to the Eternal Flames faster than she could blink, almost. The rogue army went to meet the United Nation of Fodlan’s soldiers with her at the front, and as she cut into vagrant after vagrant without anytime to stop and rest, she lost sight of everyone except her enemy. She started to accumulate knicks, scratches, and cuts, but she showed this army why she had been known as the Ashen One before she was finally upended by a mage wielding a dagger. Staring up at the man in the mask, she waited for his dagger to come down on a particular wound to make it worse, and then she heard a roar. At first, she thought that it was more of the other army’s reinforcements, but she could have sworn the roar in question was familiar. Then, she remembered. When she had first returned to Garreg Mach, Claude had introduced her happily to his wyvern, and proudly announced his name as Mustafa. She remembered Mustafa quite vividly, not only because the wyvern was snow white, but because it had batted one eye at her, yawned, and turned back to Claude, who then proceeded to chastise him. She had gotten quite used to Mustafa’s cries during their fight for peace in Fodlan. She really thought she was about to die, since there was no way Mustafa or Claude were anywhere near her right now. 

And then, she heard Mustafa’s cry again, this time right in ear. She looked up, and the sun was blotted out by wings again. However, all of these wings had some type of green on them. At their helm was a white wyvern, who she had never been happier to see in her entire life. A big smile appeared on her face.

“Hey, Your Grace! Looks like you could use a hand!” The rider on the white wyvern said.

She shook her head at Claude, though she was smiling.

“That would help, yes.” She shouted back.

He smiled back, then stuck out his hand for his aerial army to attack, and there was soon a wave of wyverns upon the upstart army that had tried to take Derdriu that day. The armies met again, but the rogue armies’ initial surprise attack wasn’t expecting the same tactics to be used against them. As the sun set, the last of the Vagrant army fell to Green and Silver Banners.

When the dust settled, the first thing Byleth noticed was that they would need to find the soldiers that died in the battle and bury them. The second thing was that she registered a lot of pain all at once, and it brought her to her knees. She looked around to see if anyone was with her. The soldiers were all off starting to clean the castle, and then, she felt gloved hands upon her. 

“Whoa, there. Take it easy, alright? You took a beating.” Claude’s voice was in her ear. She wanted to struggle to get up, and she did so.

“It was a good thing you showed up when you did.” Byleth said, holding a sudden pain in her side. Breathing was suddenly very hard, but she forced herself to her feet.

“When did they attack?” Claude wasn’t interested in greetings, it seemed. His face seemed neutral, but his eyes hid a very strong fury behind them.

“A few hours ago. It was all I could do to get a messenger to House Goneril and House Gloucester.”

Claude nodded, supporting her as they walked.

“I think you did a good job. The size of that army was…bigger than I thought it would be. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” He finished.

“I’m just glad you got here when you did. I thought we were doomed for a minute, there.” She admitted. Then, and only then did her brain process that he was there with her.

“Wait, you’re here.” She realized.

Despite his lips being pulled into a frown for most of the conversation, Claude almost smiled. 

“Yes, I am. You’re here too, thank goodness.” He said, and he put his hand up to her face.

“It’s nice to see you again, by the way.” He said softly.

Despite his hand being gloved, Byleth’s face began to burn from the touch. She put her hand over his and smiled.

“You too.” She finished, just as softly.

He was about to say something when they were interrupted by two healers who began fussing over her many injuries, none of which were as serious as any of the other soldiers. She tried to explain this to them, but they were not taking no for an answer.

“Hey, Byleth. We can catch up later. The rest of you, get to cleaning up! Let’s give people room to walk over the debris!” He turned toward his army, most of who stopped flying idly and began to move. 

She was rushed up to the infirmary, and was told to not move for the entire time she was there. Bandages were applied to her, as well as some healing magic, that always made her skin itch, even when it was healed. She was forced to stay in bed, and the sun set on the infirmary and Derdriu. She was falling asleep on damage reports, which were also less bad than she feared, when there was a knock on her door. Before he could be invited in, Claude strode in. He looked much less distressed then he had been earlier. 

“I came to see how you were holding up.” He explained, sitting by her bedside.

“Thank you. I’m certainly-” Byleth winced as she shifted, and this caused Claude to jump towards her before pulling back. “I was certainly feeling better until just then.” She admitted.

Claude smiled softly, a rare smile for him.

“I’m not a healer, but I would guess that you’re moving too much.” Claude finished.

She looked at him.

“Maybe so, but I have too much to work to do and I was just learning to manage it when this happened so now I have even more work to do thanks to a surprise attack.” She finished, and took a deep breath.

“Listen. We’ve all had a long day, you especially. Leave the work alone for a little while and rest.” He finished. She stuck her hand out.

“Bold words for someone who flew to another country to become Almyra’s New King.” She muttered. Her eyelids were suddenly getting very heavy. She was so tired.

“True. But you know I’m right.” He finished. She smiled softly.

“Will you stay here tonight? Talk tomorrow?” She mumbled.

“Yeah. I owe you that much, at least.” Claude replied, and stuck his hand out to hold hers.

She looked at him, there, beside her, smiled, and muttered an I love you before she allowed sleep to take her, where she could heal and talk with him in the morning. 

**Author's Note:**

> -Hevrik is a bad reference to a videogame I played recently.  
-I'm sorry about the summary, but I'm bad at them so I memed.  
-FETH may be consuming my soul, but I'm not sorry about it. I just wonder why my muses are either Claude or Dimitri. I'd like to give Edelgard some love too. She deserves it.   
-Hopefully I'll write more Claudeleth in the future, I like that ship a lot.  
-I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you want to catch up with me, I'm on twitter @sacredsymbol821


End file.
